Posts Tagged ‘BeFunky’

Photo editing – Tuxpi Photo Editor or BeFunky
These sites allow you to take a simple photograph and then convert it into an artistic masterpiece. They provide tools to edit the photo and reduce blurring or red-eye but can also turn your photograph into a collage or provide additional effects such as speech bubbles or clipart images. The final images can then be downloaded to the computer and printed out or used elsewhere. These sites do provide additional tools for a fee, but the free elements are more than enough for most users.

Making music – Isle of Tune or Sound Nation
Isle of Tune is a site that provides a blank canvas in the form of fields and grass. A road is added to represent the path of the music and beats are added in the form of trees, bushes and houses. Once the car is driven along the road, the music is played. This all sounds much more complicated than it actually is and it is very simple to get a basic tune but using the gallery provides a selection of well-known tunes including the Harry Potter theme tune, YMCA and songs from Bruno Mars. These have been created and saved by other users of the site.

Sound Nation provides hundreds of audio clips that can be combined together to create a larger piece of music. The clips can be trimmed or repeated as necessary. Anyone can be a DJ within a few minutes.

Create a game – Sploder!
This website provides a range of characters, objects and walls that can be dragged on to the playing surface and manipulated to provide an area for the main character to explore. This is a great way to introduce game design with younger children as there isn’t any coding involved but they will need to think about the different elements that will make a good game. This includes creating a high-enough level of challenge to interest the player, but not too high to make the game impossible. This can then be used as a precursor to paid-for software such as 2Do It Yourself or free tools such as Scratch or Kodu.

Design an avatar – Unique by Rasterboy or Clay Yourself
There are lots of sites that give tools for creating a new online character. This could be saved and used as part of a display or it could be used instead of a real photograph when using tools such as email but it is their use in literacy that makes them a bit more creative. Use these sites to create characters for a story. This could be the main character or it could be the enemy, the person who has stolen the diamond. What will they look like? What features will they have? Print out the avatar and then give the children time to use descriptive vocabulary to describe their characters.

For the younger audience The Fungooms or Poisson Rouge
These sites are amazing for one brilliant reason, they give children the chance to explore, investigate and experiment with very little (if any) instruction. Often the activities on these sites require clicking, dragging or a bit of thought and young children love exploring the different games and puzzles available. These include making pop-art, learning French, counting games or playing snakes and ladders. These sites are a little bit mad, but truly beautiful. Oh, and can you go through the window on Poisson Rouge and find all eight of the hidden fruit?

A bit of help – Under Ten Minutes
And lastly, some help guides. This site has been created to aid teachers (and children) when they use different tools. Many of these are free but it also contains videos for tools such as Google Apps, ActivInspire and Movie Maker. The idea being that any tool can be shown in around 10 minutes and this is the perfect length of time to show the videos as part of a staff training session or even in a lesson. Why not point children towards the video before a lesson on Scratch or Sketch-up?